Hopefully theyâ€™ll follow full FIFA rules and training compensation payments will be made all the way down to the U12 developer. This has huge implications with the DA eliminating U12 - foreseeably spreading the rewards to non-DA clubs as well. What a great incentive to develop for all clubs in the ladder.

Sounds like Bullcrap, if they cared they would stop importing so many players. They will do whatever is in their cash interests. Which is why no promotion/relegation, can not have a stadium investment empty because I can not run a football club, blah, blah blah. Lastly the best thing for them with their apparent increase in South American imports is to rename the league. My suggestions are as follow ( in no particular order)

1) Mexico Football League North 2) Honduras Football League North 3) Guatemala Football League North AND as a parting cheap shot at US Soccer ........ Trinidad and Tobago Football League North

Hopefully theyâ€™ll follow full FIFA rules and training compensation payments will be made all the way down to the U12 developer. This has huge implications with the DA eliminating U12 - foreseeably spreading the rewards to non-DA clubs as well. What a great incentive to develop for all clubs in the ladder.

Sounds like Bullcrap, if they cared they would stop importing so many players. They will do whatever is in their cash interests. Which is why no promotion/relegation, can not have a stadium investment empty because I can not run a football club, blah, blah blah. Lastly the best thing for them with their apparent increase in South American imports is to rename the league. My suggestions are as follow ( in no particular order)

1) Mexico Football League North 2) Honduras Football League North 3) Guatemala Football League North AND as a parting cheap shot at US Soccer ........ Trinidad and Tobago Football League North

Clubs hire players who will help them win. It isn't entirely their fault the US isn't producing the same level of talent. They can only work on their own DA players and in reality very few of them have what it takes to play professionally.

Thatâ€™s BS. The kids here are just as athletic as kids in Europe, probably more, but the level of training is poor at best. They canâ€™t use talent and they canâ€™t develop it. Just look at the resumes on some of the details trainers and your left scratching your head. Then throw in the politics involved and itâ€™s no surprise we stink.

Thatâ€™s BS. The kids here are just as athletic as kids in Europe, probably more, but the level of training is poor at best. They canâ€™t use talent and they canâ€™t develop it. Just look at the resumes on some of the details trainers and your left scratching your head. Then throw in the politics involved and itâ€™s no surprise we stink.

The U.S has athletic players at every age group difference is the majority lacks soccer "smarts" (knowledge of the game, positioning, guile, awareness). In these areas, the U.S is years behind South America, Africa and Europe.

This is all part of the broader move by MLS clubs to form their own national league and break away from the DA. Now that MLS has a feasible way to fund a portion of the significant cost they expend to develop talent in their academy system they now have a clear pathway to form their own league. And they will showcase the talent in the league by playing in more overseas tournaments, friendlies, etc. to showcase their talent to the rest of the world. No more meaningless league games against inferior competition (do you really think NYCFC's business plan is to play Met Oval 3-4 times per year) and showcases that do nothing but serve the college programs.

The DA served a useful purpose for the MLS clubs to establish their academy system but that value proposition just ended with this announcement. The DA might be an appropriate "player development" model but it is not an appropriate "business development" model for the MLS clubs. The MLS academies will now be more closely aligned with the pro team environment and that does not include the DA system that everybody thinks is here forever (remember they dropped U12's in the middle of the night with no club feedback and will drop U13's next season; looks like another big hint).

You heard it here first, the DA as you know it will disappear in the next 2-3 years. Sorry ladies, once the boys disappear the girls will disappear very quickly and ECNL will fil the void.

This is all part of the broader move by MLS clubs to form their own national league and break away from the DA. Now that MLS has a feasible way to fund a portion of the significant cost they expend to develop talent in their academy system they now have a clear pathway to form their own league. And they will showcase the talent in the league by playing in more overseas tournaments, friendlies, etc. to showcase their talent to the rest of the world. No more meaningless league games against inferior competition (do you really think NYCFC's business plan is to play Met Oval 3-4 times per year) and showcases that do nothing but serve the college programs.

The DA served a useful purpose for the MLS clubs to establish their academy system but that value proposition just ended with this announcement. The DA might be an appropriate "player development" model but it is not an appropriate "business development" model for the MLS clubs. The MLS academies will now be more closely aligned with the pro team environment and that does not include the DA system that everybody thinks is here forever (remember they dropped U12's in the middle of the night with no club feedback and will drop U13's next season; looks like another big hint).

You heard it here first, the DA as you know it will disappear in the next 2-3 years. Sorry ladies, once the boys disappear the girls will disappear very quickly and ECNL will fil the void.

I don't see this happening. There are not enough mls clubs with academy teams at all ages and even so wont be enough to form a league across the USA. Dropping U12 and U13 is not an indication of cancelling the DA. Those ages should not have been part of this program anyway.

while eliminating U12 and maybe U1, they will splitting U16/17 to be 2 age groups. Which all makes sense.

For the record, there's always some question as to whether these elite Euro teams send their "real" U-whatever teams to play these events. The answer from talking to coaches from UK clubs is yes.

BUT, one thing to keep in mind is for the most part the best players of a certain age in a club like Manchester United-say the best 05s--generally play a year a or two up. This will depend of course on a bunch of things, including physical maturity. But in European academies you can expect to see the cream of an age group playing up (so look to see the best 05 at least playing 04 and possibly with the clubs' 03s).

That happens here too of course, but not as often as it probably should because coaches would rather win than develop players.

This is all part of the broader move by MLS clubs to form their own national league and break away from the DA. Now that MLS has a feasible way to fund a portion of the significant cost they expend to develop talent in their academy system they now have a clear pathway to form their own league. And they will showcase the talent in the league by playing in more overseas tournaments, friendlies, etc. to showcase their talent to the rest of the world. No more meaningless league games against inferior competition (do you really think NYCFC's business plan is to play Met Oval 3-4 times per year) and showcases that do nothing but serve the college programs.

The DA served a useful purpose for the MLS clubs to establish their academy system but that value proposition just ended with this announcement. The DA might be an appropriate "player development" model but it is not an appropriate "business development" model for the MLS clubs. The MLS academies will now be more closely aligned with the pro team environment and that does not include the DA system that everybody thinks is here forever (remember they dropped U12's in the middle of the night with no club feedback and will drop U13's next season; looks like another big hint).

You heard it here first, the DA as you know it will disappear in the next 2-3 years. Sorry ladies, once the boys disappear the girls will disappear very quickly and ECNL will fil the void.

You're getting to some kernels of truth here, but you're way off in other ways,

It's not feasible for MLS to break away and form it's own national academy league. The travel is absurd! (Do you really think NYCFC's business plan is to play Red Bulls and Philly Union 3-4 times per year because the travel to anyone else is too far?) Parents won't go for their kids traveling at 15 and 16 to Montreal and New England and DC every other weekend (I mean some parents would, but others believe their kids should, um, go to school in addition to playing soccer).

I agree the DA is not what it's cracked up to be. The problem here though is that we need more of what in England are Tier 1 academies. As we discussed with Chris Richards, MLS academies do not and should not have the monopoly on talent. Just because an MLS franchise is in a completely fabricated Div 1 position in the professional soccer pyramid should not mean it's academy is "Div. 1." In England Fulham is a tier 1 youth academy. Fulham's first team will be relegated from the premier league this year. See what I'm getting at?

The problem is they need to extend the training compensation and solidarity payment decision to ALL youth clubs in the US. Then you have incentive and an ROI for developing players. Then you will have more competition in the youth market and MLS franchise academies won't be beating World Class 8-0, as the U14s did in the fall.

For the record, there's always some question as to whether these elite Euro teams send their "real" U-whatever teams to play these events. The answer from talking to coaches from UK clubs is yes.

BUT, one thing to keep in mind is for the most part the best players of a certain age in a club like Manchester United-say the best 05s--generally play a year a or two up. This will depend of course on a bunch of things, including physical maturity. But in European academies you can expect to see the cream of an age group playing up (so look to see the best 05 at least playing 04 and possibly with the clubs' 03s).

That happens here too of course, but not as often as it probably should because coaches would rather win than develop players.

This is all part of the broader move by MLS clubs to form their own national league and break away from the DA. Now that MLS has a feasible way to fund a portion of the significant cost they expend to develop talent in their academy system they now have a clear pathway to form their own league. And they will showcase the talent in the league by playing in more overseas tournaments, friendlies, etc. to showcase their talent to the rest of the world. No more meaningless league games against inferior competition (do you really think NYCFC's business plan is to play Met Oval 3-4 times per year) and showcases that do nothing but serve the college programs.

The DA served a useful purpose for the MLS clubs to establish their academy system but that value proposition just ended with this announcement. The DA might be an appropriate "player development" model but it is not an appropriate "business development" model for the MLS clubs. The MLS academies will now be more closely aligned with the pro team environment and that does not include the DA system that everybody thinks is here forever (remember they dropped U12's in the middle of the night with no club feedback and will drop U13's next season; looks like another big hint).

You heard it here first, the DA as you know it will disappear in the next 2-3 years. Sorry ladies, once the boys disappear the girls will disappear very quickly and ECNL will fil the void.

Based on the environment and information available, this seems spot on. I think there is a lot of very credible speculation here.

The fact is that we do have clubs who are great at developing kids up to a certain point. SO yes, our U13 or U14 teams can compete very favorably with European squads. The issue is that those top European teams continue to develop soccer-wise into their mid/alte teen years whereas here we drop off because we don't have our players at pro academies playing soccer all day. We have our kids continue to go to school and play soccer afterwards. Considering the chances even a top DA kid has of turning professional, do we really want them effectively stopping their education at 15 on the off chance they might be able to make money for a few years as a pro player?

The fact is that we do have clubs who are great at developing kids up to a certain point. SO yes, our U13 or U14 teams can compete very favorably with European squads. The issue is that those top European teams continue to develop soccer-wise into their mid/alte teen years whereas here we drop off because we don't have our players at pro academies playing soccer all day. We have our kids continue to go to school and play soccer afterwards. Considering the chances even a top DA kid has of turning professional, do we really want them effectively stopping their education at 15 on the off chance they might be able to make money for a few years as a pro player?